


counting time as time counts me

by zenstrike



Series: you’re lucky that’s what i like [24]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Gen, M/M, lovey dovey feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-12
Updated: 2018-12-12
Packaged: 2019-09-17 04:31:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16967724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zenstrike/pseuds/zenstrike
Summary: “Patience,” Shiro grumbled at them. Adam shoved a donut in his mouth and kissed the cinnamon sugar sprinkles away.- - -Shiro, Adam, and Keith—on an adventure.





	counting time as time counts me

**Author's Note:**

> for diebazal <3

The crowds were almost too much.

Adam agreed.

“This is too much,” he grumbled.

“It’s fine,” Shiro replied, sounding strained.

Keith looked up at them, frowning, and shuffled closer to Shiro with as much casual energy as his nine-year-old body could muster.

“Do you want to go on the ferris wheel, Keith?”

“Uh,” Keith started.

“Do you see the line?” Adam said.

“No,” Shiro said.

“Look with your eyeballs.”

Keith snorted.

They looked down at him. He hunched his shoulders, thinking about pulling his t-shirt over his face. “I’m fine with anything,” he mumbled.

Shiro grimaced.

Adam tilted his head. He straightened his glasses.

“You’re awfully small, Keith,” he said after a moment.

“I’m going to kick you.”

Adam grinned and Keith squinted at him and really was about to kick him and then there were hands under his armpits and Shiro was lifting him, Keith kicking and shrieking the whole way.

“What do your child’s eyes see, Keith?” Adam said, sounding lofty and ridiculous and very much like they had just had a  _ Lord of the Rings _ marathon (they had).

Keith thought about protesting. Yelling. But he was smiling so wide his face was starting to hurt. People kept looking up at him as the stream of the crowd flowed around them, and he could hear Shiro laughing.

The festival grounds were packed, filled with light and noise and smells. Popcorn and mini donuts and sugar and laughter. People shrieking on a ride further away. The looping line for the huge ferris wheel.

“Pick something!”

“ _ Not _ the ferris wheel.”

“You’re not in charge.”

And Keith, feeling laughter bubbling up in his chest, said: “The spinning thing!”

“There are a hundred spinning things,” Adam said.

“With the chairs!”

“It had better have chairs.”

Shiro dropped Keith back to the ground. Keith squirmed away.

“The swing tower?” Shiro asked, and Adam seemed to shrink a little.

Keith grinned and led the way and got them lost only—twice.

 

***

 

Adam said: “We are  _ actually _ going to die.”

Maybe—four times?

And then carried Keith out of the Haunted House while Shiro laughed behind them.

 

***

 

Maybe at first Keith had been confused and annoyed. Shiro was touchy, he learned that quickly. Adam—a little less so but still always ready with a hug.

Maybe it had been a while since Keith could count on—affection. Shiro touching his shoulder or pulling him into a hug so tight and warm Keith would forget to breathe. Adam sitting on the edge of his bed and reading with him and carrying Keith to bed when he fell asleep on the couch.

He dreamt about his dad a couple of times. Maybe it was all too familiar. Shiro never made him talk about it. “You can tell me if you want,” he’d say and drape a blanket over his shoulders.

Maybe one day Keith would want to tell him.

Maybe two people who loved each other made a whole lot of extra love to share with—one stubborn, nervous boy.

 

***

 

They did wait in line for the ferris wheel. Adam called it quits at thirty minutes and left in search of donuts. Shiro tried to tough it out but Keith got restless and wandered off to find Adam.

“Patience,” Shiro grumbled at them. Adam shoved a donut in his mouth and kissed the cinnamon sugar sprinkles away.

As the afternoon faded into evening, the crowds swelled and grew louder and Adam and Shiro started to tug Keith close when he wandered just a little too far. “Stay within arms’ reach,” Adam insisted. Keith shrugged, but he listened.

Shiro ate three corn dogs. Adam rolled his eyes a lot. And Keith couldn’t help but smile.

 

***

 

They found a bench together, just big enough for Adam and Shiro and for Keith to squish in between them. Keith’s feet hurt, a little, and he was starting to yawn but Adam kept nudging him and promising—

“Fireworks, kiddo.”

“Did you have a good day?” Shiro asked while Keith tugged at his shoe laces.

“Yup,” Keith said.

(He missed the way Shiro beamed at the back of his head, but Adam would tell him years later. “He loved you from day one,” Adam would say, and Keith would believe him.)

The fireworks were loud enough to make his ears ring and the smoke drifting over the festival grounds made everything seem ghostly and dream-like and strangely magical. Keith sucked in a breath and managed not to cough and Adam pulled him down by his shirt when he tried to climb a pole to get a better view.

And then it was over and music roared from his left and his right and the roller coaster shrieked somewhere far away and Adam and Shiro were talking quietly just behind him. So Keith sat back on the bench and licked the last of the cotton candy taste from his teeth and re-laced his shoes and when Shiro and Adam turned around he was asleep.

 

***

 

“This is too much,” Keith heard Adam say to his right.

“I’m going to put that on a shirt for you,” Shiro laughed. “Maybe a hat.”

“Ugh,” Adam groaned.

Keith, slumped against Shiro’s back, held his breath and tried to keep his eyelids from fluttering. They were surrounded by noise, still, but it was different. He knew that they were moving. He could hear the train rumbling and squeaking nearby, so maybe they were on their way back to the station. He knew Shiro was carrying him, and he knew that one of his shoes was loose like he hadn’t tied it properly.

“I think he had a good day,” Shiro said eventually.

And Keith knew Shiro was talking about him.

Keith smiled and cracked open one eye and saw Adam looking right at him. “Yeah,” Adam said. “I think he did.”

“Good,” Shiro said. “I really wanted—”

“Yeah.”

Shiro huffed a pleased sounding sigh, like after he took the first sip of his favourite tea or when Adam settled against him on the couch or when Keith tried and failed to make breakfast just to try and say “thank you.”

And Keith knew that yeah, he had had a great day.

 

***

 

(Keith dozed between them on the train with Adam’s arm around him.

“I think we can do this,” Shiro said quietly.

Adam hummed. Keith snored, soft and quick. “Yeah,” Adam said. “Probably.”

And Shiro somehow knew that Adam was seeing Keith in their wedding photos, smiling wide and looking rumpled in his formal clothes.

“I’d propose again if it wouldn’t be weird,” Shiro said, serious and firm.

“Jesus—Takashi, shut up.”

“We should wake him up so he can see you blush.”

“Oh my god.”)

 

***

 

(And so many years and so many things later, Adam made room for Shiro on the couch and said: “I guess we get Lance in our photos, too.”

“I guess we do,” Shiro said and Adam toppled over to lay across his lap and sigh.

“We’re old.”

“Good.”)

**Author's Note:**

> i hope you enjoyed!! title from symbol by adrienne lenker :)


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